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WalmartLabs, the retailer’s Silicon Valley-based R&D group, announced this morning that it has acquired loyalty startup PunchTab, in order to better connect with and engage customers who shop at the company’s Sam’s Club stores. Terms of the deal were not revealed, but this is now WalmartLabs’ 15th acquisition since its formation in 2011, the company noted.

Previously, Walmart has acquired a range of startups whose technology it primarily put to use to augment its e-commerce efforts, including, most recently, social marketplace Luvocracy.

However, in this case of the PunchTab deal, the focus is not – at least, initially – on improving the Walmart.com website, but rather on optimizing how Sam’s Club can better tailor offers such as savings, merchandise and services to its members.

Palo Alto-headquartered PunchTab, which was founded in 2011 and run by Hightail (previously YouSendIt) founder Ranjith Kumaran and Mehdi Ait Oufkir (a founding engineer at Hightail), began by offering to help businesses run their promotions and loyalty programs, but later shifted its efforts towards enterprise customers like Kroger, Arby’s, Nestle, The Yankee Candle Company, and others, in order to help them gain better insights into their customer behavior in physical stores.

The company’s platform offered a way for businesses to communicate with consumers across social media, email and elsewhere, determine which marketing efforts were actually successful, segment consumers to personalize their offers, and then track the changes in consumer behavior related to those efforts.

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Walmart says the acquisition involves both a combination of tech and talent. Following the deal, six members of PunchTab’s team, including co-founder Mehdi Ait Oufkir, will join the customer acquisition and retention team at WalmartLabs. (Kumaran was no longer with PunchTab, Walmart tells us. He returned to Hightail as CEO prior to this deal.)

In addition, Walmart will now also gain access to PunchTab’s technology platform which it will use to improve its own customer relationship management tools – meaning those it uses to reach its customer base via email, on the web, on mobile devices, and in physical stores.

Immediately after the deal’s close, PunchTab will be working on bettering the way Sam’s Club members are targeted with offers at its stores, on the Sam’s Club app and on the website Samsclub.com. Afterward, the team will apply what it learned through building out tools for the membership club to other areas of Walmart’s business, including Walmart.com

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Crunchbase

OverviewWalmartLabs is accelerating their development to redefine the shopping experience to meet the changing needs of our customers wherever they are —in a store, on our website, or on their mobile device.

OverviewPunchTab is the leading engagement and insights platform committed to creating technology that allows brands and retailers to grow engagement and lifetime value with their consumers across any channel or device.
Leading CPG and retail brands like The Yankee Candle Company, PURELL, ConAgra, Arby’s and more use PunchTab’s cloud-based solution to deepen audience engagement, build awareness, and …